106: As you know, we have always stood firmly on the side of humanity and order.

"Hum—!!"

A white light appeared in the field of view, and the Warship emitted a slight vibration.

The joint fleet exited the Void by using the star marker beside the channel.

After a brief discussion, The Consortium's fleet immediately confirmed their response strategy:

that is, while maintaining reconnaissance, exit the Void first.

If they could not pinpoint the location of the enemy's ambush, they would conduct a feint attack using a portion of their cannon fodder disguised as the main fleet.

Meanwhile, to cope with the potential threat of enemy electronic warfare,

Gulac ordered the fleet to shut down all digital control systems,

and activated a very sinister thing—the "Thinker Array"—to replace the central control system.

Put simply, it was an organic computer made by connecting a bunch of brains—'organic components'—and integrating their computing power.

Although this thing's computing power was inferior to electronic boards, its security was impeccable, effectively killing the electronic warfare track from a physical level.

So much so that when The Consortium first created this thing, it suffered a dramatic leak,

followed immediately by some so-called human rights organizations backed by other countries, demanding that organic components be entirely replaced by Clones instead of living people.

To address this, the Ministry of Military Affairs specifically held a symposium to discuss how to deal with these traitors.

It wasn't until later that a genius proposed the policy of "simultaneous modification and deterrence, solving both dilemmas," which cleverly resolved the issue—

that is, converting the people who raised the issue into the same type of wetware to deter other petty scoundrels, naturally solving the two problems of cost and opposition personnel.

Anyway, that's digressing.

In short, apart from the tedious reconnaissance that was still ongoing, all of The Consortium's main fleets had entered a boring standby state.

Now, let us see what the Imperial fleet was doing at the moment—

That's right, they were still praying.

"May the winds of change break through stagnation and bring endless new opportunities."

"May the light of wisdom dispel the darkness and illuminate the path ahead."

"Ah—!!"

"Great God of Wisdom, lord of ten thousand changes, Weaver of Fate, Master of Ingenuity!"

"Great Blubuld!"

"Thank you for your grace!"

"Allowing us to complete yet another unchanging voyage within the ever-changing Void!"

In the scriptures of these lunatics, "unchanging" was naturally also controlled by the lord of ten thousand changes, who presided over change.

And the reason humans were able to build unchanging Void Channels within the ever-changing Void,

was because the lord of ten thousand changes needed His followers to spread the way of change to more places—

In fact, because those Void Channels built in the Second Era had miraculously operated for tens of thousands of years without breaking down, there were quite a few people who believed in their dogma.

Of course, prayers were prayers, but they hadn't neglected their actual business.

However, compared to The Consortium fleet that was seriously preparing for a hard battle, the Imperial side had only two main tasks—

first, to confirm whether the fleet attacking this place was some disobedient fringe fleet of the Empire,

and then to cause trouble for The Consortium and find amusement for the lord of ten thousand changes.

The answer to the former had already been obtained the moment the reconnaissance footage was transmitted—

this style of precision strikes was seriously inconsistent with the Imperial Navy's favorite tactic of overwhelming firepower,

and to be able to withstand the strikes of the Node Space Station defenses built during the fourth era and forcibly and precisely cut off all torpedo launchers?

One must know that these Space Citys were built as military fortresses from the start!

If even an uncounted fringe fleet could achieve such results, the Empire would have unified all of humanity long ago.

Therefore, the probability that the attackers were an Imperial fringe fleet was even lower than the probability that those torpedoes had all self-detonated at the same time.

Now, having completed the main task, Kelaifu felt very relaxed:

His return to the position of Minister of Military Affairs was secure.

Now, all he had to do was cause endless trouble for The Consortium—

This was also His Majesty's intention.

As long as that unidentified force occupying Ursa Major V12.22 could survive the first round of strikes from The Consortium's fleet,

he wouldn't mind pointing them toward a bright path—

according to the Order Alliance's covenant (that contract with the super long name), for a star system that once belonged to a certain regime,

if there were no humans left in that star system, then the new force occupying it could claim sovereignty over that star system,

and as long as they made the sovereignty claim and swore online to join the Order Alliance, they would be protected by the covenant.

This regulation, which clearly had loopholes, was established after the end of the fifth Great Decay when the Alliance, struggling to recover, wanted to encourage members to reclaim the lost territories of civilization.

Since the year 200 of the New Calendar, it had basically never been invoked.

Currently, there had never been a situation where a star system's humans were slaughtered just to grab a piece of territory—not even in proxy wars between the major rogue states,

so everyone had tacitly chosen to turn a blind eye to this clause.

But now, Kelaifu knew that the time for this clause to play a role might have arrived—

as long as the other side had the strength to block The Consortium's fleet and the ruthlessness to attack an entire star system's humans,

then, while the covenant's protection was weak and powerless, the Empire's arm was strong and firm,

and they wouldn't mind raising another vicious dog specifically to cause trouble for certain political enemies—just like the "Saints."

As for that clause?

It hadn't been deleted for hundreds of years, wasn't it just because those other regimes were also waiting to use it?

It was just that they hadn't found a good opportunity yet.

"Has reconnaissance discovered any abnormalities?"

Kelaifu was pondering how to screw over The Consortium, and casually asked the communicator beside him.

"Report! No abnormalities!"

"Hmm... No abnormalities? Then we are the biggest abnormality."

An interesting idea appeared in his mind—

"Have our drone operators command our 'unmanned reconnaissance probes,' and tell them that as long as they can ram one of The Consortium's probes, they can offset one year of their service time."

"And then... draft a formal document first, and as soon as they ram it, send it to The Consortium."

"The content should basically say to tell them to pay attention to the quality when choosing organic components,"

"they bumped into our reconnaissance probe, so remember to pay for the damages."